It's interesting that the drought allowed the specks to repopulate down in cataloochee but the opposite seems to have happened on Walker Camp Prong. I would have thought the drought would have impacted it more since it is higher up and much thinner water than lower cataloochee creek. But on walker camp the bows seemed to have gained ground since the drought. I think there must be something else besides just the drought to explain this. I also actually think the change over in cataloochee happened post drought. 2009 was a wet year with cool temps and in 2010 when I fished over there it was mostly rainbows below cs 39 on Palmer Creek and the bows seemed to be doing great. This year it was all specks in the same places despite no real drought since 2008. Still could be the drought and my observations were an abberation I realize that but it makes me wonder.

On the other hand I will totally agree from my own observations that specks could probably handle drought a lot better than the bows. Just in fishing I notice that bows like to lay in the fast moving water areas. I never expect to catch a bow in a stagnant, non-flowing, warm, side pool but I frequently catch specks in places like that. In fact I catch specks in the slow/no flow areas as much as anywhere that is a fast flowing run if not more. There must have been thousands of years of droughts and unimaginable hot dry periods over the millenia and these natives endured all that and survived.

Crocket, not to be nit picking but Cattaloochee campground is at 2600 ft. You would have to go to above Chimney's Picnic area to achieve that kind of elevation. A lot of people don't realize how high the elevation is in the Cattaloochee valley.

Crocket, not to be nit picking but Cattaloochee campground is at 2600 ft. You would have to go to above Chimney's Picnic area to achieve that kind of elevation. A lot of people don't realize how high the elevation is in the Cattaloochee valley.

I've caught brookies in the neighborhood of the schoolhouse as well. I think there might be another factor, besides the drought, that is working in the specs' favor. Rainbows are actually, by nature, a big-stream fish - that is their natural tendency, and they seem to thrive in fairly open stretches. I've read stories about how big they got back when the park first opened, right after all the logging - the streams were pretty open, and there were all sorts of terrestrials like grasshoppers to fatten them up. Also, with an open canopy, there was probably a bit more aquatic growth, and perhaps more aquatic insects to go along with that. Now, the forest has regenerated, and the conditions favor the brookies a bit more...it probably works in the browns' favor as well.

Had a short amount of time to fish last Tuesday so we went to the group camp site area on Cataloochee and had a good morning... I caught rainbow, brook and brown all 3 before lunch...one of the guys had a brown in the 12" range.. We put them all back as we normall do and made it back home in time for our afternoon appointments... Going back hopefully before the end of this week weather permitting........